#Frozen: Meet the French Snow Queen

Born in France (and still living there) I discovered WDW in the mid 1970's when I was 10 during a trip to Florida with my parents. Since then, I am a Disney fan, but also a WDW fan with EPCOT as the prefered park. The Contemporary is my "mythic" hotel even if I never stayed there: it´s because of its futurist look. By the way, I also encountered space exploration during the same trip by visiting KSC. And I am today working as the chief editor of a space news website for a scientific park in France. Guess you can see the importance of this Florida trip and the others after...

We all know that Frozen is a worldwide success. One of the big challenges Disney faced was to find female singers up to the task of singing the demanding “Let It Go” in foreign countries. In France, Anaïs Delva (born in 1986) was chosen. With quite a high level education (diplomas in international business, publicity and communication), she is also an experienced professional singer who played in famous musicals in Paris like “Roméo et Juliette” and “Dracula.”

Anaïs Delva, the French Snow Queen. With red hair like Ariel, another Disney princess.

So Anaïs Delva is the voice of Elsa in “La Reine des Neiges,” the French title for Frozen (by the way, La Reine des Neiges means The Snow Queen as you guessed!). She is also the voice of Elsa for the French dubbing of ABC’s Once Upon A Time.

On Valentine’s Day, my family and I were able to meet the French Snow Queen in a music/video/book store (Cultura in the town of Aubagne) not far away from our home.

My wife warned us that we should arrive early as she thought that the Frozen mania was still there and she was anticipating a lot of people… And she was right. However, the people in charge at the store admitted that they played down any promotion about Anaïs Delva coming in order to avoid a too much massive crowd… I can’t imagine what would have happened if the promotion had been full fledged!

The meeting was fantastic because Anaïs Delva never acted as if it was a low key event. She sang with all her voice. And if you are wondering if Frozen is still a hot franchise in France, just listen and look at the public singing the French version of “Let It Go” (that is “Libérée, Délivrée” for “freed, released”). And that’s not only the young girls who are singing, some adults too!

What you don’t see in the video done by my wife with an iPhone, are all the youngest girls dressed as Elsa. The photo below allows you to see some (in fact, we are surrounded by the public).

Anaïs Delva got a huge boost thanks to Frozen and she even recently worked with Disney on an album titled “Anaïs Delva et les princesses Disney” (Anaïs Delva and the Disney Princesses) on which she is singing the great classics from Snow White, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Brave, etc.

Below, you can hear her very good interpretation of Brave.

After three songs, Anaïs Delva spent more than an hour signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. Her patience and kindness is worth mentioning.

My wife and I got our picture and she even signed my TThe Art from Frozen” book with a huge smile when she saw it.

Olivier S. (NDD#263)

Born in France (and still living there) I discovered WDW in the mid 1970's when I was 10 during a trip to Florida with my parents. Since then, I am a Disney fan, but also a WDW fan with EPCOT as the prefered park. The Contemporary is my "mythic" hotel even if I never stayed there: it´s because of its futurist look. By the way, I also encountered space exploration during the same trip by visiting KSC. And I am today working as the chief editor of a space news website for a scientific park in France. Guess you can see the importance of this Florida trip and the others after...